Please notice that there is now a link to Schola's
Bookstore in the left navigation pane of the Schola homepage. If you visit
it, you'll find lists of all the books required for the classes being offered
for the '07-'08 school year. Even if you're not taking classes from Schola
you might enjoy looking over the lists and clicking the titles to see their
description on Amazon; and if you feel the temptation to buy some of these
great books and continue your own self-education, why resist? (Note the
quotation at the end of this issue and the top of the Schola Bookstore!)

Soon there will be a feature added to the Bookstore
that has been a long time coming -- lists of recommended books to supplement
the books already listed for the classes. I've tried to construct the Schola
Great Books reading lists -- and consequently the Bookstore lists -- such
that if a person owned all these books he'd have the foundation for an
excellent library. It's not enough but it's a great start. Please browse.

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COGITEMUS: What Courtship
Is Not

Recently I wrote in this section about the meaning
of the word "courtship", and now upon further reflection I really ought
to add some words of caution and clarification.

First, I was concerned in that essay merely with
the historical meaning of the word. It only confuses issues to use in a
brand new or sloppy way words that have a legitimate and known history,
and yet nowadays when someone uses the word "courtship" there is no way
to know what they're referring to. The word "courtship" historically simply
means seeking the favor of someone. The application of that principle to
relationships between men and women hoping for marriage can be very wide
indeed, depending on culture, time, family circumstances and habits, and
many other things. But at rock-bottom it simply means that a man is seeking
to win the favorable attention of the woman, however he goes about doing
that, whether he goes directly to her or to her father first. Unfortunately,
currently it's being used to refer to all kinds of practices which bear
astoundingly little relation to the actual historical meaning of the word,
just as "classical education" is being used to refer to an amazingly broad
spectrum of educational practices, many of which have almost no connection
whatsoever with the history of late Roman (Christian) and Medieval education.
Currently, "courtship" means everything from surreys with fringes on top
straight out of the musical "Oklahoma" to a free-wheeling "make sure my
daughter's home before 2 AM" to a misguided "we're courting which means
we're engaged," to a domineering dad's "don't you even look at her till
the wedding day and, as the father I'll be the go-between and make all
the decisions for her."

That last bit leads to my second point. To the
extent that I was suggesting anything at all in that first essay about
what I think courtship should actually be, I most emphatically was NOT
suggesting sympathy with the wicked and monstrous idea that fathers "own"
their daughters absolutely and determine what their daughters should think
and who they should marry with no regard for the daughter's maturity and
wishes. Whatever authority means, it does not mean this. Most of us object
to the casual, flippant "dating" practices of modern secular America in
which there is no vision for the future of the relationship or desire to
honor the parents; but we should be just as wary, if not infinitely more
wary, of some of the practices that go by the name of Christian, wherein
a father thinks his authority means he can determine every step of the
burgeoning relationship, force the relationship into a mold that doesn't
take real life into account, and refuse to grant his grown daughter considerable
trust and freedom.

A father who is worth anything at all will have
raised his daughter in such a way that by the time she is in her late teens
he trusts her judgment, respects her maturity, encourages independence
for the exercise of her gifts and talents, and doesn't micro-manage. His
daughter is still under his headship, of course, and a wise daughter will
listen carefully to her father's counsel (and a wise father will have raised
her so that she wants to liten to, and trusts, his counsel). But that doesn't
require his treating her as though she were still eleven years old. A father
who controls every aspect of his grown daughter's life is a father who
has failed utterly. A young woman with a father like that may feel that
she must still respect his aberrant wishes, but the older men around him
should have him shoved up against a wall asking him whether his blind idiocy
came natural or did he have to practice a lot.

The third point is that when I asserted that a
young woman could conceivably be courted by more than one man at the same
time I had no intention whatever of suggesting that she should toy with
affections or make her suitors jump through hoops or otherwise treat them
with disdain and cruelty. I simply meant that several men may be interested
in her and seek her favor before she decides which, if any, she is interested
in -- or even before she is aware of their interest. And during the time
in which they are seeking her favor ("courting" her) she owes them no more
than the normal demands of Christian love and honor which we all owe to
each other all the time. A girl does not owe anything special to a young
man merely because he is showing interest. What if she is not interested
in return? Is she required to accept his wooing simply because he is wooing?
Absolutely not. And suppose that while he is struggling to win her attention
and admiration another young man begins to do the same -- she is not toying
with the affections of either of them if she simply goes about her business
and is courteous to both. If they have actually *asked* for permission
to "call on her", etc., then of course kindness demands that she tell them
of her lack of interest; or, if she is interested in one, that she tell
the other kindly that he needs to look elsewhere.

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DE ASTRIS: Gemini

If your sky is clear, go out under the stars tonight
(Friday, January 26) and find Gemini. Here's how. Find Orion in the southeast
(below and to the left of the first quarter moon. Orion's belt points down
and left to rising Sirius, the Great Dog Star and the brightest star in
the night sky. To the left and up a bit is Procyon, the Little Dog Star.
You'll notice that Sirius and Procyon form a rough equilateral triangle
with Betelgeuse, the bright red star in Orion's upper left shoulder. Now
trace a line from Sirius to Procyon again, but keep going past Procyon
and bend up a little - you'll strike two bright stars which are Castor
and Pollux, the bright stars in Gemini representing the heads of the Twins.
The rest of the stars of the constellation, representing their bodies,
are off to the right, but you can ignore them. The upper star is Castor
and the lower slightly brighter star is Pollux.

The word "Gemini" means "twins" in Latin and refers
to the two brothers of Helen (of Troy). In the ancient world it was common
to swear by Castor and Pollux, and this practice continued into the Middle
Ages and early modern world but with the constellation name, and in Shakespeare
we see the oath, "by Gemini!" which became in more recent times, "by Jiminy!"

Gemini was considered a propitious sign for mariners
because the twins had helped calm a storm while sailing on the Argo with
Jason to fetch the Golden Gleece and because of the fine spring weather
that prevails when Castor and Pollux are in the west at sunset in springtime.
Because of this, ships would often have a figurehead of the Twins or their
names or images painted on the prow, and certain seaport cities also were
considered to be under the special protection of the Twins, and these included
Alexandria, Egypt, and Ostia, the port city near Rome. We read in Acts
28:16 that the ship on which Paul sailed to Italy after wintering in Malta
was a ship of Alexandria that bore the sign of the "Dioscuri", a Roman
name for the Twins. Tyndale's 1526 version says beautifully that it was
"a ship of Alexandry, which had wyntered in the Yle, whose badge was Castor
and Pollux..."

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ANNO DOMINI: Timothy and Titus
(and Gemini!)

January 26 in some western church calendars is
the commemoration of Timothy, according to legend martyred for opposing
a pagan festival, and Titus, Timothy's disciple, companion, and secretary,
who organized the church in Crete and was its first bishop. Today you can
see the ruins of a very old church, built perhaps only a couple of centuries
after Titus's time, at the site of ancient Gortys in the south of Crete.

January 27 is the date of the dedication of the
temple of Castor and Pollux by the Romans in 484 B.C. for their help in
the victory by the Romans over the Latins at the battle of Lake Regillus
in 496 B.C. Centuries later, the temple of Castor and Pollux was a frequent
meeting place of the Roman Senate.

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SIC LOCUTUS

It is far more seemly to have thy Studie full of
Bookes, than thy Purse full of money.--John Lyly, Euphues

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